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Spotify Adds Facebook-Style Apps

Spotify is quickly surpassing Slacker and other streaming music services in popularity. The company announced Wednesday that it will now begin offering Facebook-style apps that add various features and functions to its service. Many are speculating that the integration could differentiate the Stockholm-based company among growing competition from Google, Amazon and Apple.

At their press conference in New York, Spotify executives gave a presentation of the different applications, including Rolling Stone magazine, CBS Corporation’s music-recommendation service Last.fm and Songkick, which notifies users about upcoming concerts based on the artists they like. “Since Stockholm-based Spotify is opening its app platform to any developer, much as Apple does for its iPhone app store, more functions are likely to arrive soon,” reports the Wall Street Journal. Spotify is opening its app platform to any developer, which will allow for more and better functions. Although apps will be created by third parties, Spotify will have to approve them before they’re available, much like the approval process for Apple’s App Store. “It’s going to be more like the Apple model,” said Chief Executive Daniel Ek. “We want to make sure the quality of the apps we get in is really, really high.”

Enhancing the service is intended to attract new users and to keep current customers using Spotify for longer periods of time. Spotify allows users to listen to over 15 million songs on demand, and discovering new music they actually want to hear is the prime focus of the new features.

Despite backlash from people in the music industry, who have estimated that Spotify’s licensing agreements with the major labels will cost the company roughly $175 million over two years, the new features are expected to gain the company a healthy amount of new subscribers. At Blue Interactive Agency, we love to keep up on the latest tech news. If you’re looking for interested in interactive marketing services, contact Blue today. From graphic design to social media marketing, Blue offers a complete range of web services.